Make school lunches more fun, popular

I was saddened, but not surprised, by student response to smaller portions and fresh fruits and vegetables offered to them at school. Like most taxpayers, I am troubled by the apparent waste of money and nutritious food.

Food waste is a particularly vexing problem. As the National Resources Defense Council has reported, about 40 percent of food goes uneaten, lost between farm and fork. There is no reason for perfectly good food to be thrown out in the trash, as observed in the above article. Children could place unwanted items (e.g., bananas, sealed packages) in a designated location for sharing with others, or as a donation to a food bank. Food scraps can be composted.

We can't expect bad habits to change overnight, but school is the ideal place to educate children (and parents) about the economic, environmental and lifelong personal benefits of healthy eating. At the same time, more can be done to nudge students to adopt new behaviors.

This isn't rocket science. Experiments with school lunch lines carried out by Wansink and his colleagues at Cornell demonstrate that simple steps like renaming a menu item ("Big Bad Burrito") and putting fruit in an attractive bowl can increase demand for both. According to the field of social marketing, desirable behaviors should be "fun, easy and popular." Why not enlist kids to generate ideas for making healthier school lunches more appealing? This looks like a "teachable moment." Let's not waste it!

Fredrica Rudell

New Rochelle

The writer is assistant professor and chair of marketing at Iona College, chair of its Environmental Concerns Committee, and a contributor to WeHateToWaste.com.